HOT ZONE: A Post-Apocalyptic Pandemic Thriller (The Zulu Virus Chronicles Book 1)

by Steven Konkoly

  “What does that mean?” said Emma.

  “It means we’re pretty much fucked,” said Larsen. “Unless we can maintain a good distance. They pack a very accurate thirty-millimeter gun mount. If they get in range, we are dead. No amount of maneuvering will do us any good. Chang?”

  “Got it,” said Chang, bringing them into a steep, rolling climb.

  The Kiowa raced below them, starting a sharp turn before Chang lost sight of it through his cockpit door window. With the plane now headed south, he brought them as low as he dared to fly. When the sun broke over the horizon, he could nudge them a little closer.

  “Keep an eye on the Kiowa, David,” said Larsen. “We’re not out of the woods yet.”

  “I’m on it,” said David.

  “We’re headed toward the Eagle Creek Airport,” said Chang. “I’ve landed there dozens of times. I could navigate us there by sight.”

  “The army will have it locked down like the other airport,” said Larsen.

  “Then what are we supposed to do?” said Chang.

  “Try to slip out on a different heading,” said Larsen.

  “Under observation?” said Chang. “We’re a little conspicuous.”

  “We need to land unobserved and try this again tonight,” said Larsen. “How are we looking back there, David?”

  “The Kiowa lost a lot of ground on that last maneuver. The other four are still coming,” said David.

  Chang racked his brain for an option that didn’t involve a registered airfield. He could land on a reasonably short patch of ground, maybe seven or eight hundred feet long, but with six passengers and most of their fuel, he’d need at least twice that to safely get off the ground. Then there was the helicopter problem. There was no chance of landing unobserved at this point. Within minutes of landing, the plane would be destroyed. A thought popped into his head, but it was crazy. Really crazy.

  “You have a plan,” said Larsen. “You’re grinning.”

  Chang shook his head slowly. “You’re not going to like it.”

  “We’re fresh out of options,” said Larsen. “So let’s hear it.”

  “I can land us on Interstate 70, just south of the downtown area,” said Chang. “I’ve driven it a thousand times. My office is right there. It’s long enough and wide enough. We can even hide beneath an overpass I take to get to work.”

  Chang momentarily thought about the data he’d hidden in the lab. That would come in handy, too.

  “Jesus,” said Larsen, taking a few seconds to think it over. “How far away is your office?”

  “Less than a quarter mile,” said Chang. “At the NevoTech research labs.”

  “We both work for NevoTech,” said Emma. “I’m at the financial building in the city. Jack is a sales rep.”

  “How long have you—” started Chang.

  “We can do the small-world stuff later,” said Larsen. “How secure is the lab?”

  “Very secure,” said Chang. “I can’t imagine NevoTech would let anything happen to that facility. It’s basically indestructible.”

  “I don’t know,” said Larsen.

  “It’s designed to withstand tornados and earthquakes. They have billions of dollars in research and development riding on the survival and security of that building.”

  “I’m more concerned about what might be waiting for us outside,” said Larsen. “There were three more teams. One of them might have been sent to the lab, just in case.”

  Chang hadn’t thought of that, or the other possibility. “I keep an apartment a few blocks away from NevoTech.”

  “Then we definitely have another team in the area.”

  “I don’t see where else we can land?” said Chang. “This is almost perfect. I’ll aim for the city, skirt around the western edge of the buildings, then cut hard left, dropping in for a landing. The interstate is right there. I know I can set us down.”

  “We’re forgetting something,” said David.

  “What?” said Larsen.

  “The city itself. That might be a long quarter mile, given what I’ve seen on patrol in the suburbs,” said David.

  “Our neighborhood was on the border of sheer madness when we left,” said Jack.

  “It had already gone mad,” said Emma blankly.

  “Do we still have company back there?” said Larsen, turning painfully in his seat to see out the back.

  “The Kiowa is fading,” said David. “I still see the other helicopters, but I can’t tell if they’re falling back or gaining.”

  “Do your best to make that assessment. Our lives will depend on it,” said Larsen, passing the binoculars between the seats to Jack. “Give those to David.”

  Larsen grimaced in pain with the movement.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” said Chang.

  “How long to the interstate?” said Larsen.

  “Five minutes. We should be able to see the city center at this point,” said Chang. “Right there.”

  He pointed at a small cluster of high-rise buildings in the distance. Without the first rays of morning sunlight reflecting brightly off the steel and concrete structures, they wouldn’t have been able to see them this far out.

  “I’ll be fine,” said Larsen. “Take us in, Dr. Chang. I don’t see any other option.”

  Chang made a minor adjustment to their course, pointing them for the western side of the buildings. Without turning his head, Larsen spoke in a soft tone that was clearly not meant to be heard by the other passengers.

  “Can you really land this thing on the interstate?”

  He responded quietly. “There won’t be much room for error, and if there’s traffic—forget it.”

  “Early Saturday morning, in the middle of a citywide outbreak?” said Larsen. “My guess is the road will be empty.”

  Chang hoped so, although the sight of Indianapolis’s usual light traffic on a Saturday morning would be a welcome sight, too. It would mean the city hadn’t imploded, and there was still some hope for the people inside the quarantine zone.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  David’s stomach lurched, his back pressed tightly against one bulkhead and his feet pressed against the other. Joshua sat across from him, looking just as nauseous, his feet pressed against the bulkhead next to David. Pushing against opposite sides of the aircraft was the only way to keep them in place when Chang maneuvered the plane. They’d been tossed around like rag dolls during the first few minutes of their escape from the airfield, miraculously avoiding injury. He had no idea what was in store for them with this landing, but it didn’t sound good.

  The city’s modest skyline suddenly appeared in the curved rear window above them, close enough that David could see office furniture inside the nearest building. The aircraft leveled, blue sky mercifully filling the glass. He prayed that was it. It wasn’t. The plane dove wildly for a few seconds before easing into a calm, shallow descent—but the damage was done to his stomach.

  He retched its meager contents over his shoulder against the back of the plane. Joshua somehow managed to hold it together as everything seemed to go still in the Cessna. For a moment, David thought they had lost power, but he could still hear the engine buzzing. He glanced between the rear seats and nearly gasped. They couldn’t be more than a few feet above the interstate. He faced forward and closed his eyes for what seemed like forever.

  The Cessna bounced lightly off the highway, grabbing the road on its return and slowing significantly. David opened his eyes and peered through the cockpit window, seeing what any commuter might see through their windshield.

  A hearty cheer filled the cabin, everyone high-fiving and yelling for a few moments. David crawled forward, steadying himself on Jack’s and Emma’s seats. An overpass rapidly approached, and Chang slowed the aircraft, bringing them underneath like it was meant to be. The plane appeared to be completely covered by the overpass when it stopped, positioned between two on-ramps feeding the four-lane highway behind them.

  �
��Let’s go!” said Larsen. “We need to get out of here fast.”

  David opened the rear compartment’s clamshell doors, giving Joshua a hand out. They grabbed the rifles while Jack and Emma got out of their seats and squeezed into the cargo area. He took a quick inventory of their weapons, handing the M1-A1 to Joshua.

  Larsen ducked under the wing, looking morbid. From the right hip down to the knee, his camouflage pants were stained dark red. A bloodied bandage was crudely taped across the front of his thigh, evidence of some kind of yellow powder sprinkled under the compress.

  “I want you to carry that,” said Larsen. “You know how to use it better than anyone here. Give your son the other suppressed rifle. Jack, have you ever fired a rifle?”

  “No,” said Jack. “I fired the revolver for the first time last night.”

  “Dr. Chang, you get the other rifle,” said Larsen. “It functions the same as the one I showed you last night.”

  Chang didn’t protest, so David reluctantly gave him the AR-15. Chang immediately checked the safety. A good sign as far as he was concerned. Joshua looked a little too giddy to be holding the suppressed weapon, but he knew how to work an AR-15 weapons platform, so he’d be fine with the HK416A5. The distant thump of helicopters spurred them into action.

  “Which way, Dr. Chang?” said Larsen.

  Chang pointed up the embankment leading down from the overpass. “The road right above us is East Street. It leads right to the NevoTech campus. The lab is on the other side, but we can enter through one of the lower campus gates. The whole campus is enclosed and secure. I need to inspect the plane first. One of the wings doesn’t look right.”

  “One of them was crooked to start, right?” said Larsen.

  “We’ve been flying in a broken plane?” said David. “Not that I’m complaining.”

  “It wasn’t crooked,” said Chang. “Just needed a little adjustment to bring the two wings into better balance. I’ve been flying it like this for years.”

  “What’s wrong with it now?” said David.

  “Hold on.”

  Chang walked in front of the plane, staring at it, as they passed him.

  “The right wing looks bent,” said Chang. “Just barely, but you can see it. Maneuvering like that over max weight puts some weird stresses on the aircraft. We’re lucky it didn’t snap off.”

  Larsen stood next to Chang for a second. “Looks fine to me.”

  “It’ll look fine until it isn’t,” said Chang. “That’s kind of how aviation accidents work.”

  “We can take off, right?” said David.

  “I don’t see why—”

  The helicopter sounds deepened, cutting off Chang’s answer. They climbed the grass embankment and ran across an off-ramp to a thick stand of trees and bushes next to a rundown residential street. Larsen struggled the entire way, leaving David with the distinct impression that he needed medical attention immediately.

  “Anyone see the helicopters?” said Larsen.

  The group scanned the skies beyond the trees, each answering no in rapid succession. The rotor drumbeat didn’t seem to get any closer as they listened. David walked to the far edge of the overgrown patch of land and took up a position close to the neighborhood. A woman dressed in denim shorts and a bloodstained bra sat at a picnic table behind the nearest building, staring at the back of the next building. A man sat across from her, clutching a half-crushed beer can, his bloodied head resting facedown on the table. He couldn’t tell for sure, but it looked like the worn surface was covered by a thick sheen of blood.

  A shirtless man in bloody jeans stumbled down the street next to the neighborhood, swaying like a drunk and drawing her attention. She stood up, grabbing something David couldn’t see from the bench next to her. The stumbler caught sight of someone in the group and veered toward the line of bushes separating the street from their little oasis.

  He tracked the man over the M1-A1’s scope, the shot too close for the 10X-magnified optics. The disheveled man lurched through the thick bushes, falling to the browned grass in a heap. When he managed to push himself back up on two feet, a bloodstained kitchen knife appeared in his hand—previously concealed behind his leg. The man glared at him with pure malice, his eyes narrowing. David looked over his shoulder at Larsen, who took one look at the guy and raised his rifle. A single suppressed shot drilled through the man’s forehead, dropping him below a bright red mist.

  David swallowed hard, unsure what had just happened. Actually, he’d seen it before—and it had nearly killed him. The man had the same look as the woman on Maidenfield Road when she’d unloaded a pistol at David and his partner, then charged them for no reason. Inexplicable hatred and rage.

  The woman in the backyard started toward the chain-link fence separating her from the street. David sighted in on the woman, who carried a semiautomatic pistol. Like the guy that stumbled through the bushes, she didn’t look right. Glitchy movements, almost zombielike, characterized the way she climbed the fence, ignoring the gate a few feet away.

  “Contact. Armed hostile approaching from north,” said David. “I need some suppressed shots here.”

  “Fuck,” muttered Larsen, hobbling over to David’s position.

  By the time he got there, the woman was in the street, heading directly for them. The woman started to raise the pistol, losing the top of her head a fraction of a second later.

  “This is fucking crazy,” said David.

  “Swap weapons, Emma,” said Larsen. “I suspect we’ll be doing a lot of this on the way to the lab.”

  “I can’t believe we’re in the city,” said David. “This is beyond fucked.”

  Larsen put a hand on his shoulder. “I wish I had better news for us, but this is our reality until nightfall. We just need to hold on until then. Not do anything stupid.”

  “Like go to Chang’s apartment?” said David.

  Larsen didn’t respond directly. “Take a look across East Street.”

  David looked past a thick row of trees. A twelve-foot-tall black wrought-iron fence ran along the sidewalk on the far side of the street, extending as far as he could see.

  “That’s the NevoTech campus,” said Larsen. “I think we’ll be safe there.”

  “Unless another team finds us,” said David. “Right?”

  Larsen adjusted himself, wincing from the movement. “We need to get inside one of the secure buildings on the campus and wait for nightfall.”

  “I don’t think you’re going to last that long,” said David.

  “I’ve been worse off,” said Larsen. “Let’s get moving.”

  Chang ran toward them, holding up his cell phone. “Dr. Hale is in my apartment!”

  “Keep it down, for shit’s sake,” said Larsen, pointing at the street. “They’re everywhere. Who the fuck is Dr. Hale?”

  The scientist went pale when he saw the body in the street.

  “Dr. Hale is an emergency room doctor,” said Chang, his eyes locked onto the corpses. “She brought me samples of the virus this morning. I left her with the codes to get into my apartment in case she ran into trouble. I can access the security system remotely. She’s there.”

  “You could use a look from an ER doc,” said David.

  Larsen didn’t fire back a smart-ass comment, like usual, so David guessed he agreed.

  “We can’t risk approaching your apartment,” said Larsen. “How do you know it’s her and not someone else?”

  “I can see her sleeping on the couch,” said Chang, shrugging his shoulders. “I know. It’s a little creepy.”

  “The apartment will be under surveillance,” said Larsen.

  “She can head over to NevoTech,” said Chang.

  “That would work,” said Larsen. “They’d send one person at most to trail her. We could have David let her in one of the gates. They don’t know him.”

  It was David’s turn to be pragmatic. “How are we going to take off with another passenger? I assume we aren’t going to leave
her behind.”

  Larsen laughed. “Well, look at you.”

  “I ditched my rose-colored glasses at the airfield,” said David. “Thanks to you.”

  “The campus will be safer than you think,” said Chang. “We might end up staying there until help arrives.”

  “I highly doubt we’ll see any help,” said Larsen.

  A long burst of automatic gunfire cut through the new morning. He recognized the distinct sound immediately. So did Larsen, who gave him an uneasy look. M240 machine gun. Only the military would be equipped with a weapon like that. A second, shorter burst echoed off the buildings. The gun wasn’t close, but it was close enough.

  “We should get off the streets so no one confuses us with one of them,” said Larsen, motioning toward the heap of bodies in the street.

  “Then I guess we have a plan,” said David. “Subject to immediate change. Let’s go.”

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chang followed Larsen closely as the group moved briskly down the wide sidewalk. They walked in a tight line, weapons facing the street on their right. The formidable fence separating them from NevoTech stood guard over their left flank. The normally bustling corporate campus stood eerily quiet, like a ghost town. He wished he could say the same about the neighborhood beyond the street.

  One of the rifles behind him snapped twice, and Chang looked over his shoulder. A man dressed in a ripped and partially burned suit dropped to his knees in the middle of the street, trying to keep his body upright with a fireplace poker. Another shot from David’s suppressed rifle knocked him flat. That had been the third shooting since they’d set off for the pedestrian gate farther down East Street.

  “What happened?” whispered Larsen.

  “Another aggressive type,” said Chang. “Guy in a suit with a fireplace poker.”

  “We’re not seeing many nonaggressive types,” said Larsen.

  “I was afraid of that,” said Chang. “The virus was seriously modified. Almost reengineered. This could be way worse than I ever imagined.”

  “Worse?” said Larsen.

  “If they somehow reduced the lethality, we could be looking at a city full of violently unpredictable lunatics.”